Knowledge Exchange Platform (KEP) Workshop 1 - Kate Scrivens.pdf

OECD Knowledge Exchange Platform on Well-being Metrics and Policy Practice (KEP): Virtual Workshop 1, 13 June 2024

Summarising the complexity of well-being data and evidence: Reporting and communicating on well-being dashboards

1. First KEP workshop on ‘Summarising & communicating the
complexity of well-being dashboards’: scene- setting
Kate Scrivens
KEP Project Manager
13 June 2024

2. •A broad, multidimensional vision of what matters for people’s
lives
•A focus on current outcomes and the long-termdrivers of well-
being (e.g. capital stocks)
•An emphasis on equity and inclusion that gives distributional,
household-level outcomes(e.g. inequalities, poverty) as much
weight as aggregate economic outcomes (e.g. GDP)
•Afocus on sustainabilityand preventative action and
investment, that takes into account the needs of both current
and future generations
Well-being approaches to measurement and policy
tend to have more commonalities than differences

3. OECD Well-being Framework
Dimensions
G7 Countries Selected OECD Countries International Efforts
CANDEUFRAGBRITAJPNIRLISLISRKORNLDNZLEStatHDISDGsWHR
Current well-being
Income and wealth              
Work and job quality             
Housing             
Health               
Knowledge and skills       
Environmental quality            
Subjective well-being             
Safety             
Work-life balance             
Social connections          
Civic engagement            
Future
well-being
Natural capital            
Human capital               
Economic capital            
Social capital             
Source: OECD (2023), Economic Policy Making to Pursue Economic Welfare: OECD Report Prepared for the 2023 Japan Presidency of the G7,
https://www.oecd.org/economy/G7_Beyond_GDP_Economic_policy_making_to_pursue_economic_welfare_2023.pdf
Inequality breakdowns included in a transversal way across most well-being frameworks

4. “since brevity
is the soul of
wit….
I will be brief”
William
Shakespeare,
“Hamlet”

5. “The soul of wit may become the
very body of untruth. However
elegant and memorable, brevity can
never, in the nature of things, do
justice to all the facts of a complex
situation. On such a theme one can
be brief only by omission and
simplification. Omission and
simplification help us to
understand - but help us, in many
cases, to understand the wrong
thing; for our comprehension may
be only of the abbreviator's neatly
formulated notions, not of the vast,
ramifying reality from which these
notions have been so arbitrarily
abstracted.”
Aldous Huxley
“Brave New World Revisited”

6. Brevity
Vast
ramifying
reality

7. Ease of understanding
Comprehensiveness

8. Ease of understanding
Comprehensiveness
SIMPLIFICATION
Combining
information on
multiple indicators
through narrative,
composite
indicators, or other
forms of synthesis
OMISSION
Selecting a sub-set
of indicators or
data stories to
highlight
(including through
headline
indicators)

9. Ease of understanding
Comprehensiveness
SIMPLIFICATION
Combining
information on
multiple indicators
through narrative,
composite
indicators, or other
forms of synthesis
OMISSION
Selecting a sub-set
of indicators or
data stories to
highlight
(including through
headline
indicators)
Contextualising
through comparison:
Over time, between
regions, between
groups, benchmarking
against other countries
or targets
CONTEXT
TECHNICAL METHOD
E.g. criteria for selecting indicators,
weighting in composites, establishing meaningful differences
FORMAT & PRESENTATION
Choice of medium
(report, interactive portal, fact sheet)
Data visualisation,
infographic design
ETC, ETC…
Timing, timeliness
and regularity
Conceptual
framework &
related frameworks
Target audiences

10. •What choices have different initiatives made?
•What has worked well and less well?
•Where can we identify common challenges to address in more depth, or
innovative practice to amplify and replicate across countries?
•How do experiences and objectives differ for different types of reporting
agencies (e.g. statistical agency vs strategic or policy departments)?
•What do we know about, and where do opportunities and barriers exist,
for better understanding and improving the impact (including policy
impact) of well-being dashboard reporting and communication
initiatives?
What can we learn from each other’s experiences with reporting,
communicating and summarising well-being dashboards?